Zach Top is taking home his very first win at the 2025 CMA Awards!
The country singer was awarded New Artist of the Year at the CMAs in Nashville on Wednesday, Nov. 19, beating out Ella Langley, Shaboozey, Tucker Wetmore and Stephen Wilson Jr.
“Thank you very, very much. I can’t remember if I was supposed to put my beer down first or not, but here it is now,” he told the crowd while accepting his win. “I’m so thankful to be included in a category with a bunch of other great artists that have had phenomenal years. I’m thankful to be here.”
Top, 28, noted that it was his first-ever CMA win, so it was “a big deal” to him.
He went on to thank God for “giving me the gift to be able to sing and play,” as well as his parents for “realizing that I was never gonna be a professional cowboy or a baseball player, so maybe the closest I could get was to sing about cowboys.”
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Zach Top accepting his win at the 2025 CMA Awards
The star, who performed his song “Guitar” earlier in the night, also thanked his siblings, as well as a number of other friends and colleagues.
“It’s been a hell of a last couple of years,” he concluded. “So, so thankful and ready to celebrate all night.”
Top was also up for New Artist of the Year in 2024, and this year is also nominated for Male Vocalist of the Year, Album of the Year, Single and Song of the Year. He released his second album Ain’t in it for My Health in August, featuring singles like “Good Times & Tan Lines.”
“It has been absolutely insane the last couple years, how many people have fallen in love with my music,” he told Smooth Radio in October. “I’m really, really thankful for them and really excited that they like it that much.”
Nominee Langley, 26, is no stranger to the CMA Awards; last year, she and Riley Green won Musical Event of the Year for their playful single “You Look Like You Love Me.”
The hit is featured on Langley’s debut studio album Hungover, which she released in 2024. The singer is among the night’s most-nominated artists, as she, Megan Moroney and Lainey Wilson are all up for six nominations each.
Other nominations at the 2025 CMAs for Langley, who told PEOPLE in 2022 that all of her songs are “real things and real stories in my life,” include Single of the Year, Song of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year.
Shaboozey’s nomination, meanwhile, comes after he was previously nominated for the same award at the 2024 CMA Awards. Since his breakthrough hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” tied the Billboard record for longest-running Hot 100 chart-topper of all time, he’s been riding his success with a tour, an invite to the Met Gala, not one but two features on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and more.
In April, the singer, 30, released a deluxe version of his album Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, which contained the singles “Good News,” “Blink Twice” and “Amen.”
Check out all of PEOPLE’s full CMA Awards coverage here.
“I want to outdo what I did last year,” he told PEOPLE in a cover story in May. “You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to compare or compete, but I want to continue to make music that people know across the world.”
Wetmore, 26, also had a breakthrough year, as he released his debut album What Not To in April. The “Wine into Whiskey” singer also toured this summer with Thomas Rhett, and had a song featured on the Twisters soundtrack last year.
“This time last year, I wasn’t even touring,” he told PEOPLE in April of his whirlwind success.”My songs were doing pretty good, but then when I first started touring? I mean, if you would have told me all of this a year ago, I wouldn’t believe you. Absolutely not.”
Wilson Jr., 46, broke through in 2023 with his first album søn of dad, inspired by the death of his father. Earlier this year, he released a deluxe version of the record, along with the covers EP Blankets.
Wilson also supported HARDY on tour this year, and put out songs with Shaboozey and Noah Cyrus.
He told PEOPLE in February that his late father is in everything he does.
“I sing about him all over the world,” he said. “So, in a weird way, his legacy is more alive than it’s ever been. For me, the music has just always been some desperate attempt to keep him alive.”
The 59th Annual CMA Awards broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 19 from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. on ABC. The show streams the following day on Hulu.
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